The imminent departure of the troops for France, and to what perils no one could say, stimulated the dormant sentimentalism in Hamilton and, like half the young lieutenants in the division, he woke up one day to find himself engaged to Margaret, after she had come to camp with her mother to visit him.
Now, as his eyes moved restlessly about the room, as if looking for a means of escape, little incidents of his past life came popping out from unexpected hiding places in his brain. His mind had a trick of confusing two events—present and past—and he felt vaguely he had been in this ward before. Then he remembered the operation on his nose, after it had been broken in the Princeton game. It made him suddenly homesick.
“You’re looking fit to fight,” said Dr. Levin cheerfully, leaning over the bed and preparing to slip back the jacket of Hamilton’s pajamas so that he could get at the wound. “Just move your arm back a little—that’s the way. I suppose you know it’s all over now?”
Hamilton nodded.
“You don’t know what a close call you had, I’ll bet.” The surgeon deftly removed little strips of adhesive plaster.
“No,” Hamilton’s eyes were turned on the doctor. “Only this infernal wound hurts like the devil. Nurse said that—that nigger over there saved me.”
Dr. Levin turned around. The negro was asleep.
“Yes, he and a white officer picked you up near Chartreux Woods.”
“Chartreux Woods? How’d I get there? That wasn’t our objective, and anyway there weren’t any nigger troops around. Last thing I remember I was heading across no man’s land. Then something hit me.”
Hamilton scowled and noticed the quick skill with which Dr. Levin was tearing bits of porous plaster and sticking them on the edge of the bed, where they would be handy.